Readers can look forward to a rich fall publishing season this year since so many books were postponed due to Covid-19.   So, let’s focus on September which covers the gamut from mysteries to thrillers to romance to fantasy and science fiction. 

 

Jim Butcher, famous for his Harry Dresden series (often described as Harry Potter for adults) about a wizard trying to solve mysteries in Chicago continues with “Battle Ground.”  Christopher Paolini, best known for the “Eragon” books, finally returns with a science fiction novel, “To Sleep in a Sea of Stars.” 

 

“Transcendent Kingdom” by Yaa Gyasi is gaining a lot of advance critical attention in this novel of a PhD student “fueled by the need to understand her brother’s addiction and mother’s depression” as recommended on September’s LibraryReads list.  “Monogamy” by best-selling author Sue Miller looks at a 30-year marriage that is not what one partner thought. 

 

“A Rogue of One’s Own” by Evie Dunmore, “Well Played” by Jen DeLuca, and “The Roommate” by Rosie Danan are all new romances due in September. 

 

Fredrik Backman’s “Anxious People” follows a hostage situation; Jodi Picoult’s “The Book of Two Ways” focuses on an Egyptologist’s life; Ruth Ware’s “One by One” is a locked room thriller, Naomi Novik’s “A Deadly Education” is set in a magic school where you better learn if you want to survive, and Wendy Walker’s “Don’t Look for Me” contains a family grieving until one of them vanishes during a stormy night. 

Other new books this month are Louise Penny’s All the Devils are Here,” Alyssa Cole’s “When No One is Watching,” J. D. Robb’s “Shadows in Death,” 

 

Christina Baker Kline’s “The Exiles,” Ken Follett’s “The Evening and the Morning,” Elena Ferrante’s “The Lying Life of Adults,” and Matt Haig’s “The Midnight Library.”